The Lewis
The stonemason's lewis is a device used in raising and lowering stone blocks in
the course of building, as exemplified by the smooth ashlar in the derrick on
the Senior Warden's pedestal. The Romans in their day are thought to have used
it in the building of the Flavian Amphitheatre, and the Saxons in the building
of Whitby Abbey in the seventh century. There is ground for believing that the
device was employed in putting into place some of the more massive stones of
Statements that the lewis derived its name because it was used by an architect in the service of Louis XIV are wide of the mark. Documents of the years 1352, 1357, and 1368, reproduced in L. F. Salzman's book just mentioned, give the word lewis in some of its early forms (lowys, lowettis, lussis) while a sixteenth-century drawing in the same book shows a lifting-rope attached to a stone by means of the lewis.
The Lewis
Above: the
steel wedges, spacer, and bolt; below a cut-away view showing the Lewis in
position
ready for raising or lowering the stone block.
The stonemason's lewis is a grapnel, for which a specially shaped socket needs to be cut in the top face of the block of hard, strong stone that is to be lifted. (A lewis might break away in a heavy block of soft stone.). Two opposite sides or ends of the socket are undercut, not all four as often pictured. Two projecting wedge-shaped, tapered steel keys are introduced into the socket, and between them is inserted a parallel steel spacer, which spreads the wedges into the undercut parts; then a shackle-pin, or bolt, is passed through the upper extensions of all three, and provides a hold for the lifting chain. The illustration clearly shows how the device works. The precise purpose of the lewis is to allow the hoisting chain of the derrick, or crane, to raise the stone and then lower it into its exact, final position in the wall, which could not be effected if chains or ropes passed underneath the stone. When the stone is in its exact place, the shackle-bolt is removed, thus allowing the spacing piece to be withdrawn, and then the two wedges.
Somebody has written that the lewis enables the operative "to lift the heaviest stones with a comparatively trifling expenditure of physical power," but this is a complete misconception, the lewis being nothing more than a convenient method of attaching the hoisting chain to the stone.
The Lewis as a Symbol
Obviously the lewis is an appropriate symbol of strength-a double symbol,
inasmuch as its name has been given to the son of a mason, his duty being to
bear the burden and heat of the day that his parents may rest in their old age,
thus rendering the evening of their lives peaceful and happy, This double
symbolism is mentioned in some old catechisms, but the usual Craft ritual does
not refer to it, although the device has a place in Mark masonry. The American
Craft system, except for the State of
Q. What do we
call the son of a Freemason?
A. A Lewis.
Q. What does
that denote?
A. Strength.
Q. How is a
lewis depicted in a Mason's lodge?
A. As a cramp
of metal (etc.).
Q. What is the
duty of a lewis ... to his aged parents?
A. To bear the
heavy burden (etc., etc.) so as to render the close of their
days happy and comfortable.
Q. His
privilege for so doing?
A. To be made
a Mason before any other person, however dignified by
birth, rank, or riches, unless he, through
complaisance, waives this privilege.
There is good ground for believing that the lewis originally was the first son
born to a man after that man had become a freemason. Apparently the lewis was
used as a subject for moralizing in the eighteenth-century lodges, for the
minutes of
The curious fable of how Hiram Abif attained the privilege of being a lewis is recounted in an earlier section dealing with the Hiramic tradition.
The Son of a Mason
How did 'lewis' come to mean the 'son of a mason'? It does not answer the
question to say that the device supplied the name, and inevitably suggested the
symbol, because the device itself appears to have gone out of use in the English
operative craft, and it is difficult to find mention of the word lewis in early
eighteenth-century print. In
But, with all deference to the above authorities, a digression must now be made to consider the possibility of a rather different theory. At one time in some districts of Scotland an ex-apprentice who failed to gain admission into the fraternity was known as a 'lewis,' or 'lose,' or 'loss'; the difference between him and the cowan, if there was any at all, could hardly have been worth mentioning. The Harris MS. No. 1, dating to the second half of the seventeenth century, insists that " You shall not make any Mold, Square, or Rule for any that is but a Lewis; a Lewis is such an one as hath served an Apprenticeship to a Mason but is not admitted afterwards according to this manner and Custom of making Masons." Naturally, the unfortunate lewis, or cowan-lewis, might have been, and probably was, the son of a mason. Who knows? But he had ceased to be an honoured son, although the fault was not necessarily in him but quite possibly in the trade system.
The present writer's conjecture is that
Again let it [the bumper] pass to the ROYAL
lov'd NAME,
Whose glorious Admission has crown'd all our Fame:
May a LEWIS be born, whom the World shall admire,
Serene as his Mother, August as his Sire.
We can safely draw the inference that Gofton knew of the lewis as a Masonic
symbol, and was perpetrating a pun, and a particularly good one, too, bearing in
mind that the Prince of Wales's second name was Lewis. Equally safely, we can
conclude that the use of the word in Gofton's verse fastened itself upon the
imagination of the Brethren in those rather obsequious days, and did more than
anything else could have done to make the emblem popular in the Craft.
A Lewis's Privileges
Although the name 'lewis' was not well known in England until late 1730's, it
does not follow that there was anything new in the privileges which came to he
afforded to the eldest son of a mason. In the Aberdeen operative lodge in the
seventeenth century a member's eldest son, or the husband of his eldest
daughter, was excused on entry from the need to make the customary gift of apron
and gloves to every member, and there was a custom in the old guilds for a
Master's eldest son to have his passage into the fraternity eased by the
reduction or remission of fees. That benefit does not apply in English
speculative masonry, where the lewis's privilege amounts to nothing more than
that of being entitled by custom, and not by rule, to be initiated before any
other Candidate under consideration at the time; whereas, in the Scottish
system, there is a rule by which "sons of Master Masons under Grand Lodge "may
be initiated at the age of eighteen, and a custom in some lodges allowing
reduced fees. The English custom is not without a few exceptions, as in Anchor
and Hope Lodge,
Lewisa !
Readers may smile at the way in which the word 'lewis' has been bestowed on a mason's daughter. For example, the minutes of the old lodge meeting in 1739 at the Turk's Head, Fleet Street (it is now No. 20), record: "Our Brother Delarant presented the lodge with a bowl of punch on his having a Lewisa born, and her health was drunk in form."
Apparently, too, in some rituals of about 1770 there was this toast:
"To all our
royal and loyal, great and little Lewises wherever dispersed, not forgetting the
Luisas."
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